5 Ways to Invite People in Bahasa Indonesia

Have some Indonesian friends that you’d like to spend your time with? You may want to invite them to a party or simply ask them to join a fun weekend activity together. You always know how to share your ideas in English. How about inviting your Indonesian friends in their native language? It must be impressive, isn’t it? Here are 5 useful phrases in Indonesian you can use to invite people to join activities.

“Ayo…!”
E.g. “Ayo kita makan di warung sate!”
So, the word “ayo” basically means “come on”. This word usually comes together with “kita” as the subject of the action, translated as “we (you and me)”. There are some variation in spoken for this invitation word. The formal form is “ayo”. In daily informal conversation, people could go with “Yuk”, “Ayuk”, Yok”, “Yuks”, and other personalized spelling, but you can still figure out its origin.
Now, how do we respond to this invitation? If you are agree to join, you can simply respond by “ayo”. However, if you have another plan and choose not to join, you can apologize first and explain your situation. Like: “Maaf, aku mau makan di rumah. Ibuku masak banyak.”

“Mau …, tidak?”
E.g. “Kamu mau pergi ke pantai, tidak?”
Technically, this phrase is asking if you’d like to do something or not. Respond to the invitation by saying “Ya, mau.” or “Oke, ayo”, if you agree to go. Again, apologize and explain the reason of your unavailability if you can’t join it.

“Ada acara …?”
E.g. “Ada acara Hari Minggu sore?”
Before asking someone to join your activity, it is always good to check and confirm if that person will be available for the time required. Asking “ada acara …?” is one good, polite, and common way of Indonesian people to do it as it is immediately translated into “Do you have any plan …” followed with the time.

“Bagaimana kalau …?”
E.g. Bagaimana kalau kita menonton film besok?
This phrase equals to “what about…?”. Used to suggest some alternatives of activities to share together. By asking the question, it means that the person is open to any suggestion. There is an informal alternative to use so that your conversation becomes more relaxed. Replace “Bagaimana” with “Gimana”, and pronounce “kalau” as “kalo:”. Then the question will be: “Gimana kalo kita nonton film besok?”. Remember to put informal verbs form to match the question (nonton instead of menonton).

“Kapan-kapan kita …, ya?”
E.g. Kapan-kapan kita pergi bareng, ya?
“Kapan-kapan” is a vague time marker in Bahasa Indonesia, which means “one day in the future” and we are not sure when that time will be. It is normally used when you meet new person who surprisingly share the same interest to you or to an old friend you haven’t meet for quite a long time. It is used to suggest catch up activities in the unplanned future.

Use these expressions alternately in order to understand and be fluent in using them depending on the situation. Plus, knowing some alternatives of saying the same ideas will make your conversation be more interesting and so you don’t sound boring. Give it a shot! (dian).